


Picking Up the Pieces

by credensjusitiam



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Aftermath, Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Broken Families, Established Relationship, Explicit Language, F/M, Fake AH Crew, Immortal Fake AH Crew, Implied Betrayal, Implied Relationships, Moving On, No Specific Reasons Given for Certain Character Departure, Not Beta Read, Not Shippy, References to Ryan Haywood, References to The Lads, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Trans Character, Trans Jack Pattillo, fuck Ryan Haywood, ventfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:54:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27922612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/credensjusitiam/pseuds/credensjusitiam
Summary: Things fell apart, Jack was the one who decided to keep them together.
Relationships: Jack Pattillo/Geoff Ramsey
Kudos: 8





	Picking Up the Pieces

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I'm not particularly sure how I should go about these notes, but this was written as means of coming to terms with some revaluations considering the person listed in the tags. It didn't particularly help or hurt me, though. It just made it easier to accept that he's gone forever and we won't be seeing him again and that is for the best. He can seriously go to hell and I hope that all of his victims are doing as well as possible right now. I am willing to take this fic down if anyone needs it to be removed. I don't mind at all and understand if it needs to be. 
> 
> I reference betrayal in this fic and I wrote this with no concrete reasoning for what exactly happened. My brain was assuming some sort of double cross situation at parts and at parts nothing in particular at all. It can be whatever someone wants it to be. In any case, he's fucking gone. Any other fics I ever write will not include even a reference. I wrote a lot of this in anger. I became angry (starting out from shock) especially after seeing Michael and Jack address the situation and the more and more I read. It came out and became this mini-novel and the starts of a few other fics that I would like to one day finish. 
> 
> Again, please let me know if this needs to be removed. The last thing I want to do is make someone uncomfortable.
> 
> Thank you.

_ “We're going to have to…. yeah, we’re going to… I think we’ll have a talk in the morning.” _

They were going to have a talk.

Even with his pauses and the fact she had never seen his face so long in all her life and they had known each other for a long time now, it might as well have been a friendship since childhood, he never went back on things like that. Whenever he mentioned them, he was serious, because things were serious enough to require everyone to settle down and listen up.

Talks meant something happened, but talks also meant they were going to figure things out.

They made setbacks feel a little more real and a little easier to accept.

They were supposed to have a talk, one of those meetings where they all gather into the kitchen - some sitting at the table, others leaning against the walls or cabinets. They had one, at least the last one, when they talked about starting to bring in some of the newbies into more complicated jobs. They had one when Ray left. There was going to be grumbling and complaining as they ushered everyone out of their rooms or away from the TV but everyone eventually took their places. They would hash out what they knew. Talking about that, Geoff made it a point to remind someone when they started to speculate too much, and Jack would shoot a look at Michael if he started to get a little too sarcastic with his looks or started to lecture Gavin about some observation. There were donuts in the pantry, she could have gotten those out and the food would have made people a little more eager to stick around, and everyone would have taken turns to push and shove for coffee or milk. Things might have felt a little closer to normal (just a little, but who was she kidding, they weren’t going to be until they found a new normal) for a few moments. The lads might even decide to hover around the living room for a few hours more.

But a whole day passed and not one sign of a meeting had yet come.

He had said they would have one, but it still had not come.

That was why Jack sat inside of the kitchen in her normal seat now even after having not slept for yet another night and unlike all her other early mornings not even dressed for the day ahead. Instead she sat there with a mug filled with tea and looking into the brown liquid below feeling the stream hit her face instead of drinking it. She was hoping that today would be the day, that everyone just needed a little more time alone, but she wondered how likely it would be all the same. But, then she wondered, if even talking about whatever  _ that  _ shitshow had been would be enough to help. They had someone leave or others joining in. Sometimes jobs went bad or there was a massive fight between lads. All of that they had made it through, but betrayal? By someone who had been there almost from the beginning - well, long enough to feel that way, anyway - and had been despite being completely mad was someone everyone believed they knew and trusted? Leaving would have left a hole and that would have been bad enough, but this?

She looked up at the door and sighed.

Everyone had more or less gone off to their own corners. Geoff? She hadn’t seen him since he shut the office door in her face and gave her that vague statement. He was likely taking this the hardest and Jeremy was probably sitting on his bed where she had left him after she had gotten him out of the living room, his arm bleeding as they both scrambled through a first aid kit for something, anything to get the bleeding under control until his healing kicked in. Michael and Gavin had made a retreat for their rooms around the same time.

They had never been gone this long before.

She then sighed, “Maybe I should knock and see if anyone answers.”

But Jack supposed that having a chat with anyone would be hard when everyone had retreated into their corners as they had. Then there was an unspoken understanding that the bedrooms were untouchable places - they were only supposed to knock or stand outside the doors when there was an emergency. But they had never exactly spoken about what constituted an emergency. Certain things were obvious - fires and massive earthquakes came to mind - but did something like this count? The danger had passed. Or at least the immediate threat left of his own accord. She ran a hand down her face at the thought of referring to someone as that especially someone who had been on their side. Or at least someone she thought was. Maybe, she needed to bypass the normal way of doing things and take matters into her own hands this time? The longer this dragged on, the harder she started to believe this would become. She had experience in that particular department - she had spent weeks hiding during her student days when her family disowned her and had damn near wrecked her own entirely, though the flushing her GPA down the toilet and having to drop out had been a good wake up call, it was hard to get herself up in the mornings and even harder to try scraping together the money to leave her home city. She could see the crew breaking apart if this went on for that long and not a word was said or a face seen. They needed to do something now. She needed to do something if nothing else.

Reaching out was probably the best place to start.

She had always wished someone had reached out to her during her lowest points.

She supposes she would need to break the cycle herself. 

But not everyone would see it as reaching out, some would see it as being pushed and that could be a problem.

Her mind became stuck on the thought about knocking on the doors after she finished her morning drink, drinks more than likely, just not until later in the morning when there would be the chance someone might be up and ready to move around, but at the thought of doing so, she wondered if that would be seen as someone unwanted intruding on their much-needed space and decided to play things by ear. But they couldn’t stay like this for much longer, at least, that was what her gut was screaming at her though its reasoning had more to do with herself than their job and the reputation that precedes them. But did any of that matter at a time like this or was this the time where their roles might, to some extent, matter? They had been knocked down. But wasn’t their whole “bit” that they couldn’t stay down for even a second? They had been exploded, shot, rammed into by cars, stabbed - she couldn’t even begin to try to keep any sort of tab on the sheer amount of ways that they had each bit the dust - and still got up after moments. That had to mean they were tough? They were each tough in the past. All of their pasts sucked. She had learned enough over the years to know that they had each overcome serious emotional and physical hurdles. They bleed, they cursed, they hugged, they screamed and then they moved on. Are her own bad experiences really a good predictor of what will happen to them? They had moved on before, though it was more like they decided to carry on anyway. You never forgot big things.

Sometimes that moving out involved blowing up a few cars while they were at it, but it was still moving on all the same.

Usually they piled on top of each other at these moments and they carried each other forward.

But now? Now, everyone was apart.

How come they were stuck now?

Was this being stuck? Were they stuck?

Jack found herself kicking at a table leg only stopping by a throbbing pain in one of her big toes. She glanced down at her feet and frowned at it, only moving her gaze once she was satisfied that she had not (or at least believed she had not) broken it.

What good would any of them be if they couldn’t even stand to be seen by each other?

How do you get unstuck when you think you can’t trust anyone?

That had been, well, it had felt like a week ago now but she thinks (at least the calendar on her phone is telling her that) it’s been two days since everything had gone down and they became a crew with one less and with a hole that she was sure could never be properly filled, at least not for now. Since the once filled bedroom had been abandoned and left not quite as it had been originally, though, it was much emptier than it had been. Everything inside had been either tossed into trash bags which Jack had volunteered to take to the dumpsters outside or packed (“hastily thrown” was more like it) into a couple of bags and carried out the door. All that remained was an unmade bed - the sheets had been tossed -, some empty and dust-covered shelves, unopened boxes of Swiffer pads and tissues, the ruins of an office chair, and a desk covered in knife marks and carvings. No curtains had been on the windows and the blinds had been left shut. The floor had been left mostly intact, though, Jack had noticed some light bloodstains that both had been missed upon her makeshift cleaning job but also she suspected would need a stream clean and perhaps a hastily purchased new rug or two until she could figure out if the carpeting should be replaced for good. Maybe something darker that would be better to hide stains with - but her thoughts always quickly stopped by that point. The room was empty and it was almost, only almost, like no one had never lived in it. 

But, there had been something else left behind now that she thought of it. A hastily written note. A non-apology, based on Geoff's word for its contents - of course, he had screamed this out loud - but she had yet to see it. No one else had seen it. The note hadn’t been left in the bedroom, but instead on the splintered ruins of their coffee table, crumpled the second Geoff had gotten his hands on it as if he was wringing a neck, and now was somewhere in Geoff’s office or at least had been. Her mind went to the sounds of the fire alarm that sounded hours after the fight. She wondered if he had burned it in his trash can or held it and watched it burn in his hands. The door had been locked that night, she had tried to tug on the doorknob and even considered what the ones were she could break down the door as soon as she smelt smoke. There had been the shouting of curses and then silence. The only sight of life is that the light was still on and could be seen from the crack under the door and the sound of someone rushing to clean up. She was sure that she could faintly still smell smoke whenever she passed by.

Even their leader had been stunned into silence.

The Geoff Ramsey.

The Kingpin himself.

It had never been silent before. There was no way of knowing if silence was even a completely terrible thing much like the calm before a storm. Though, as things stood, it was more likely than not they were in the middle of the eye of a storm. Something much like a hurricane before the time that people became able to easily predict and see the signs of something big and bad coming onto the horizon. But the house had never been entirely quiet before without even the sounds of a TV blasting from the living room. Sometimes at best she could hear the faint sounds of a video game from a closed bedroom and sometimes from the living room, but it was soft enough to make her question its existence without the sound of a curse or excited yell. In any case, she sounds of traffic and sirens often overpowered it during the busier times of the day and it might as well be something imagined as opposed to a real noise and in all honesty, Jack hated it. It was far from right. Things were far from right and the silence only enforced a growing sense of unease.

No one had left their rooms from the moment the front door slammed shut and she heard another set of bedroom doors close. Not unless it was to get food and even then sightings of the lads or Geoff were rarer than a Maned Wolf sighting. She had only caught a glimpse or two of who she thought was Gavin and she at best had only heard Michael making a racket in his room one morning - it had quickly stopped at the second they heard her footsteps and after that, there was relative silence compared to a normal day. Jeremy had been silent, though, she was sure he had left a few times to play video games (the newest Xbox with the best set up sitting in there) in the middle of the night or to run to the nearest convenience store for potato chips (though Jack had made sure to buy his preferred kind when she had last shopped she had seen the familiar receipt and the crumpled up bags in the trash), she had heard the front door shut and lock at least once. No one from the B team had come by, but she had made them aware of the situation. She had sent multiple text messages out as she had tried to scrub the blood from the walls. Her hands had been shaking and she had to correct the words once or twice as “and’ because “abs” and a few other errors. There was so much that needed to be sad but the words struggled to come - but eventually, she had sent them. No responses, likely they were just as shocked - though she suspected the messages hadn’t been seen until the following morning. That was okay at the moment, though. She had not expected to get anything back from them, especially not right away. Especially anything that indicated that they believed what she had sent out. They tended to go out and paint the town red after a successful job or even because they were bored.

But, now it's way past the morning after, and still her phone had not gone off minus for the typical alert tones for the local news station’s app, her alarm for the mornings, reminders of bills that needed to be paid, and notices of junk emails - she had not seen anything, not even an emoji come from anyone on her contact list. There were a few headline notifs that she had yet to clear away - all things related to their last job, mostly the police making statements about the nature of the crimes and the typical PR moves and buzz words to make it sound as if they were trying to figure it out who it was and catch them. Not that they didn't already know. They openly said that it was the Fakes due to the outlandish nature of their actions. Jack sometimes felt annoyed with that particular description. Sure, in some sense it wasn’t wrong, but couldn’t they use some other word? It was nothing particularly interesting and held nothing that would give any of them cause to be concerned, especially herself, or more concerned than they likely already were. They were the last bunch of people she was concerned about. Everyone else involved in their line of work ranked much, much higher. They were the ones capable of doing the work and putting in the effort to do something to harm and stop them. Especially after their ex-crew member’s actions. He had been in contact with someone, though, Jack couldn’t be sure who. The number on the text message looked to be like a burner and she had no chance to commit the entire phone number into her memory.

Yes, that would eventually need to become the bigger priority, though they likely needed to also juggle a few new jobs in the process. They were going to need to call in a few favors to find the right people to do the looking into things but they would also need to pay others handsomely for silence. Something like this could be enough to ruin them so they needed to know who he had been talking to and for so long. She had suspicions but she needed the name, they needed the name to see what they needed to do next. A couple of rich upstarts like some of the newest crews on the block were nothing to be too concerned about but something like the Purple Cobras? That could be an issue - not that they were worried about throats being slit - but the city had become much more stable since the Fakes had taken the position of being the top crew. There was an understanding that if any other crew tried to cause any sort of chaos like Los Santos had been seeing for years - the kind where dozens could easily die in one shot, the Fakes were about avoiding unnecessary fatalities, and entire blocks of the city end up burning to the ground - then they were going to pay for it. Based on the jobs and heists that they had done to get to their position - no one was ever feeling particularly brave enough to try crossing the very defined line in the sand.

That, she fears, might have been changing from under their noses.

What information he had fed them if any. If there was anyone else - but that would be harder to prove without having the chance to interrogate if interrogation even worked. But they had let the man walk out so it was moot and Jack knew that the first thing they should do should be trying to get themselves pulled together. That one came first. She still needed to talk to Geoff about looking into the phone number. She knew that he likely would be fine with her acting on her own this time, but it was against her code. They communicated these things. They always had since the beginning. She was the second in command and she knew her place. That was handling the day to day and making sure orders were followed to the letter or rather, based on the others, just followed at all. They trusted each other to voice their concerns and well, how could she if he wasn’t speaking to anyone at all?

She began to swipe away at the headline notifications before she looked at the most recent, paused, and felt herself snorting remembering the last article she had glanced at when they had first offered the reward for information as if they were so sure that someone should bab that they shopped at the nearest grocery store or picked up donuts from one small one-location place in their neighborhood. Like hell that would happen. It was always so incredibly bold of them to talk as if anyone in this city was stupid enough to attempt approaching them for that purpose. Or that what small, paltry sum they could ever talk about offering couldn’t be matched or even increased by the crew if the situation came down to money needing exchange hands. For a whole organization that was well-known for taking bribes in exchange for doing nothing about anything or doing something about something else - they certainly failed to see that their actions set a precedent for even the underground. They all could be bought for the right amount and if the best they could do was a few thousand, then they seriously had no right to be surprised when someone they saw as “able to talk” refused to. Why bother dealing with the fallout for a few thousand dollars when a crew or two could pay much more handsomely or provide something that the other party needed much more. Besides, everyone knew that the Los Santos Police at best were lazy. Even if someone gave away the neighborhood, would they even bother to do any further digging considering a few other details? Los Santos was a shit hole, a shit hole where it was every man, woman, non-binary person, child, or animal purely looked out for themselves minus small pockets of folks who were just trying to work and live their lives. But people generally weren’t willing to pay to have hospitals built or have wings added to or for many other necessities that neither the city was willing to spend their money on or people couldn’t afford to do themselves even if they complained and grumbled about it. They also gave away money to people on Los Santos twitter who were looking to escape from abusive homes, start to transition, pay a medical bill - anyone who they could find in need of help.

They were in some definitions a group of Robin Hoods and people weren’t about to risk tossing neighborhood heroes into the slammer.

Though, based on the stories, she would be tempted to change that last part from Heroes to Gods.

People were already aware of the whole “Immortality” thing even if they mostly thought of it as a fun type of “story” or “urban legend.”. There were more than enough people who were trying to make a case for it (and with good enough proof in Jack’s eyes) while others laughed it off as people imagined stuff. Jumping out Parachutes and the like were a lot easier to believe and made the sights of bodies flinging out of planes easier to take.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the kitchen door swinging open. She looked up from the table and found a sigh escaping. Standing in the doorway was a very exhausted man still wearing the suit he had been wearing when they had left the penthouse last. But the suit was far from crisp and clean. It was wrinkled and the jacket was missing. The bow tie hung crookedly as if he had tried to pull it off and gave up trying. His hair was messy and in need of a wash and black circles much like her own had formed up his eyes which seemed dark and were darting around as he walked in. She wondered if he was looking for the others or if he had hoped she had decided to make coffee with the coffee maker. But he must have not seen what he was looking for because she groaned and shook his head. Without even looking at her he walked past the table and towards the counter where he began to scoop coffee out of one of the bags on the counter into a coffee filter. He then moved on pouring water into the coffee machine and pushing the on the button - pausing and glancing back looking as if he had wanted to say something or knowing him to ask if the thing was still pre-set before he merely looked away again.

Things began almost silent minus the buzz of appliances and Geoff’s movements and what felt like a good five minutes passed before. Jack decided to say something, “Geoff, have you been sleeping? You’re not trading caffeine for sleep, right?”

He didn’t respond to the soft chiding, he merely kept his eyes on the coffee machine while the water started to boil.

Eventually, “I was sleeping.”

“Sure you were,” Jack muttered leaning back in her chair, “At least change your clothes. That suit looks like it’s about to stand up on its own.”

“After I get some coffee.”

He began to rummage around grabbing his preferred black mug - they had dozens in dozens of different colors, but that particular one was only ever touched by himself.

“Fine, coffee first then change your clothes.”

They sat in silence. Jack found herself stretching her legs, brushing against a chair, her eyes falling to the blue-green terry cloth sleeves in front of her. She wondered if she could excuse herself for a moment and at least pull on her clothes, she had the feeling that he had noticed she was still wrapped up in a robe, large baggy t-shirt, and frayed plaid pajama bottoms that had long seen better days. She had not expected anyone to come out of their crypts until noon and that was at the earliest. Most days had gone differently as she would be the first up and Jeremy would be the last one up and in the kitchen as everyone had gone off to do their things, but she had realized quickly that sleep was going to be hard for all of them to come by. There were a lot of each of their minds and no one was sure where to start in sorting through it, not to mention attempting to process it.

It was much like processing a death, she thought. Only the person they were mourning as - well, did he even exist? Was any part of him real? Was most of it real but under it all, another person lurking?

“You’re usually dressed by now.”

“Usually,” she agreed, that much was true, “Just had a late start this morning.”

The latter part was a lie. But it was a small harmless lie. She had left her bedroom only 10 minutes before Geoff wandered into the kitchen and she had been sprawled out on top of her comforter since the previous night.

“You haven’t been sleeping either, Jack.”

That much was true He must have noticed her moving around during the late hours. He always seemed to notice things like that. Though, she almost felt herself pause at that particular announcement.

“How - “

He merely tried to smile.

“Went to use the bathroom at 1 and your light was still on.”

Well, that much had been a surprise She had assumed those footsteps were Jeremy coming in from a late-night convenience store run. But her light had still been on even with her lying listlessly on top of her bed.

“Sorry, I’m just -” she started, “I tried to sleep -”

Geoff merely held up his now filled mug as if silently saying “cheers” but he quickly lowered his hand. He ran his free hand down his face, rubbing his eyes for a second. Jack’s eyebrow raised at the realization that he looked damn close to ready to drop. She wondered if he had been sleeping as he claimed or just lying, half sprawled in his office chair and half spread out on the desk with his eyes shut. Or if he had been sitting and staring blankly in front of him. Would there be crumpled up sheets of paper tossed around the room, maybe one or two balls in the small trash can, as if he had been trying to think of something and just gave up on the idea? She knew that the map he had hanging on the wall was marked up - more so than any other time she had been him making marks. There were various red pins. Some words scribbled in pencil, in an almost unreadable chicken scratch - well, it would be unreadable to anyone else but her, the small cost of having been partners for as long as they had been.

Her speculations were cut short by a tired, short: “Why are you apologizing? It’s morning and you usually use that thing and we’re all usually up or starting to get up or going to bed”.

“Well, the kettle can be loud, and with things being as quiet as they have been - “Her words were quiet and for a moment she started to feel the words wanting to spill out, “well, you remember a few years ago -”

Before she could finish, Geoff raised an eyebrow and asked, “Everyone’s still in their rooms, huh?”

Jack nodded ignoring the fact that she had been cut off. Nobody had left for the last day and it had been quiet since about 2 am. Nothing being shouted or thrown, at least. Though, she winced at the mental image of just what each of them had been doing in their self-imposed isolation.

There was no mention of his previous question, instead, he turned his attention to what Jack had been about to say and took a guess, “It’s as loud as a bomb - is that what you’re saying?”

A shrug followed, “Might as well be. I mean, maybe, it would be better to at least do that as if nothing changed, but...”

“Stuff’s fucking changed, though.”

“Yeah, but…” her voice trailed off before she sighed, “Yeah, it has.”

They sat in silence, periodically picking up mugs of tea or coffee and taking sips. Jack found herself teaching for one of the sugar packets sitting in a bowl in the middle of the kitchen table. She slowly tore the wrapping and poured the contents of the packet into the mug in front of her before dropping the remains next to it. Then she took another and tore it open this time a little less carefully, sugar spilling onto the table, before pouring it into the hot tea beneath. Her hand moved once again towards the bowl before a loud cough sounded.

“I think they might be sleeping finally -”

“It’s been too quiet to tell, but they might be.”

Jack quickly withdrew her hand, dropping the object in her hand, and moved it to the mug's handle. She would have just grasped the mug but it was still much too hot. Her eyes moved to the fridge and its built-in ice maker - maybe an ice cube or two could fix that. It would feel more comforting if she could just wrap her hands around the source of the heat but it was still much too hot to do that and feel anything but discomfort. Ripping open sugar packets would have to do or would have done just fine until Geoff had called her out.

“Ease up on the sugar there. I don’t think you’re going to be too thrilled with tea-flavored sugar if you meant to end up with a cup of tea.”

That had earned the man a furrowed brow and an annoyed grunt. Jack finally pulled up the robe which had started to open and reveal a baggy t-shirt.

“Just saying.”

“Geoff,” came the inevitable mutter, “I didn’t make the tea to drink it - I needed something to do and it smells good. Let me make it a disgusting mess.”

Geoff shook his head and pulled the bowl away from the table’s center and towards himself giving the remaining packets a pointed look. It had been ages since Jack had taken more than one sugar in her tea and even longer since she had been stressed enough to put sugar into what was herbal tea. When did she go out and buy that - that was the other thought that crossed his mind, but his eyes were busy watching her hands.

Once he was satisfied that she wasn’t going to keep pouring sugar into the cup, he swirled his coffee and tried to find his train of thought again. There was a slight moment of “Oh, right” that appeared on his face as if something had dawned on him.

“Anyway,” he started thinking that he had something he wanted to say as he started to talk, but his words trailed off and he glanced down into the half-empty bowl, just as quickly and became, “Anyway…ease up on the sugar packets. You’re making my teeth hurt.”

Jack began to stir the tea instead, a little bit sloshed onto the table - her hands had been far from steady - and she blinked when she felt droplets land on her hand. Geoff quickly grabbed for a paper towel from the holder, in his haste removing the towels from the holder as he ripped a sheet near the edge of the table and reached over, letting it hang out as close as he could get to Jack’s hands. He would have just started to clean up the mess, but his reach had only allowed for this much. She glanced at the paper towel for a moment before tentatively taking it and carefully wiping up the tea. As the last of it soaked into the paper, she found herself mumbling.

Geoff ignored it. The words were already hard to tell. Instead, he found himself asking, “Any reason why you just didn’t stir the hell out of that in the first place?”

“It felt nice being able to move my hands, to do something. It’s not so much that I needed a hot cup of tea this early and stirring tea didn’t seem like it was stress-relieving enough.”

“Tearing open sugar packets?”

A shrug then followed by a quiet, “Try it, it felt kind of good for a moment.”

“No, no. I’m good.” He muttered, “I’m good with my bitter mess of a drink. Should keep me up while I think of our next move.”

Jack found herself looking, rather her head snapped up from the pile of torn paper wrapping, a little surprised at that announcement.

“You’re already thinking about jobs?”

He nodded.

“That’s not like you. You’re usually pushing for us to take breaks, blow off some steam, and we just finished a fairly big job before...”

Her words trailed off (“Just how many times are they going to do that” she wondered.) and she sighed. Right, everything had to go to shit after it had been going just about perfectly. They would have to rework a lot of their methods to account for the missing person. She was about to ask him if he needed some help when he started to speak again. It began with a forced chuckle.

“Well, I also needed to keep my hands busy.” He started before quickly adding trying to both look and sound amused, “Heh, yeah, typically. But, maybe that was a bad thing looking back. Like we shouldn’t have gotten complacent with the guy we pulled out of what amounts to a fucking want-ad. Maybe I’m overthinking it, though. But, I feel like, hell, I don’t know.”

That smile was hollow. It came nowhere near close to reaching his eyes. He was defeated. They all were. Jack could only frown and look back down at the small pile of sugar packets near her as they both went into an uneasy silence which was only filled by the sounds of sipping drinks and deep breaths mixing with Jack’s uneasy shifting in her chair. What must have been a minute felt like an hour and she had found herself debating whether or not to glance up at the digital clock that hung above their still shiny and pristine appearing silver refrigerator to see if her guess had been correct, but instead she found herself quietly shaking her head. This was hard. She started to think that this was hard. He had also started to close off like lads but it was more like he was not aware of it, not entirely. He was giving her openings to say something, but then he would yank them away as if trying to avoid the elephant in the room.

It was a giant ass elephant.

A giant ass skull painted elephant that had a fondness for mayhem and knives.

One that was impossible to not notice and would be better gotten rid of even if it hurt to admit to it.

With a mutter, Jack instead chose to look at Geoff, “Want to talk about it?”

She paused the hot liquid inside of the cup making a slight splash and she pulled away from the cup and the spoon inside of it. She frowned at it. Maybe, she had been a little too blunt about asking. But, it seemed as if he was teetering between wanting to and not. It would be easier if he said something now or so she thought. Might as well pull the band-aid off or whatever the saying was. It would hurt, but it needed to be done.

He shook his read in response, “Not particularly. It’s not going to change anything even if we did. But I’m sure you already -”

Yep, she had asked that too bluntly.

“Sure, it might not. But, I don’t know, it’s been a… couple days,” she tried to voice tentatively as if she was not sure just how long it had been, “we can’t keep shoving whatever this is down. I mean, I’m not thrilled at the idea of talking about things -” She began to stir her tea again and continued as if she had decided to abandon her previous thought, “What do you mean “I’m sure you already” - you mean “figured that out already” when you say that?”

Geoff scooted his chair back and jumped up to his feet. She almost wanted to smirk; she had known he was not able to answer that question. Even after all these years, he was still bad at getting to the heart of things. Though she had to admit, he was trying.

“Know what, I’m going to get up and find those donuts you bought on our last grocery trip. I don’t know how about you, but I’m hungry.”

She was silent and merely kept looking at him as if telling him that she was not about to budge on getting her answer.

Eating? Now?

“Come on, Jack. You need to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I doubt you’ve eaten since this happened. Remember the night when -“

He tended to be just as stubborn but over the oddest things. It was like he just picked something and dug his heels in. It was never consistent. Right now, it was trying to make sure she had eaten apparently.

“I’m not hungry, Geoff.” She cut off with a “this is final” tone, the one she typically reserved for the lads when they were acting less than associates and more like wayward children. The kind of tone that needed to be used the night before a job and everyone was still up and screaming at 2 am. It was rare for her to direct that voice at Geoff. That was only for when he had suggested or done something bordered on amazingly stupid or reckless.

“Jack, I’m getting the donuts out.”

His tone matched her own though he sounded a little by the pause he took between her name and the rest, just a tad more apprehensive than she had. Not enough for most to notice.

She merely shook her head, “Do whatever you want, but I’m not hungry.”

“They’re going to go bad.”

She chanced a sip of her tea and shuddered ever-so-slightly before the mug touched her lips, “‘Give the rest to the lads. I bought more than enough for everyone anyway.”

He began to rummage through the cabinets as if he had not been listening.

“You look pale. So, you haven’t been eating or sleeping. Immortal or not, that’s not good for a person…”

She was going to ignore that.

After his managing to remove a good number of the drinking glasses which now all sat scattered over the counter top and even in the sink among the dirty glasses that still needed to be washed, Jack found herself sighing and giving the other man a pointed look, “Geoff, check the pantry. Should be on the third shelf.”

“Thanks,” he starts to scoop up glasses in his arms to return them to their assigned space, “Uh, hey, why’d you put those there and not just on the counter.”

“First off, keep the ones you just put in the sink there. I’ll wash them when I’m done here,” Jack pointed out as he finished putting away the ones in front of him and moved to the sink, “As for the donuts, They were supposed to be for breakfast after we finished and got back from the safe house - well, for today. I had the feeling that we were going to be delayed getting to them and well, I only had the one day where I had a moment to pick them up.”

“Oh.” He set the glass in his hand down and turned around in the direction of the pantry door which was marked by a calendar still set in January but no one had ever felt assed to change over. He frowned at it and took a moment to flip it over to the correct month before turning back to the shelves inside. All of it was crammed with cases of water, sodas, ramen noodles, pasta sauces, cereal boxes - all dry goods or unopened Oreos and other snacks. It was filled to the brim and had been since the last earthquake hit. Not that Geoff was particularly worried about “the big one resulting from what was just a minor shake. But Jack had insisted on keeping things stocked. There were a lot of them in the place and it would be useful if systems that were in place failed. His eyes then fell on some flashlights and batteries that had also been thrown in there and he almost wanted to laugh. Of course, she had thought of that too. There were probably another few first aid kits somewhere in the mix as well.

He takes a few moments but eventually, he notices the familiar-looking white and red box and starts to gently tug at it. As he pulled, he figured that she must have struggled to find a good hiding place and had to jam it inside. After a couple of tugs and nearly causing the donuts to spill out, the package becomes free and he carries it over. Jack frowned at the state of it, she must have jammed it in there a little too well. He can’t help but notice that among the various associated pastries there were ones that looked familiar. Those had been - his thoughts as quickly shut down minus starting to squeeze out one more question.

“Did you get kola -“

Jack nodded but answered before the word could fully leave his mouth, “I got a mix of different things… I think there might be cream horns in there too..”

The green and slightly battered box ends up being set down in the center of the table, though, Jack narrowed her eyes realizing that they were closer to her than Geoff. The box had not been carefully opened and sat half ajar, one doughnut missing - it appears that he had gone for an old fashioned instead of any of the filled ones or the cake donuts that were decorated for the season that the lads seemed to clamor for when they saw them and the kolaches were gone. The kolaches sat in one row towards the top of the box and the cream horns towards the bottom of the box. The box had been filled and the edges had been tapped as otherwise there would have been a car filled with donuts - there were more than enough to an average family to overdose, but Jack had never been one to think small. She treated food shopping as if she was making sure she had enough for a small army to be able to grab something and go. But he supposed that it was better this way, they needed the calories especially if they were healing from something particularly nasty. It was funny how immortality worked. They needed a lot of food to even have the energy to get through a day or two - not that they particularly were worried about starving but hunger could get particularly uncomfortable after a few days - and that meant any group meals tended to be elaborate. The kitchen counters would be filled with plates and bowls and pots holding whatever the person who was cooking at that time decided to make or they would be covered in wall to wall pizza boxes or take out containers. That meant it carried over to even something as small as donuts after a job well done but unfortunately the shop they were regulars with was becoming cheaper and cheaper when it came to boxes.

“Wow, I’m relieved that the doughnut I wanted didn’t pop out and hit me in the face.”

“I tried to get two boxes, but you know how they get unless it's exactly an even two dozen… I don’t eat more than one most of the time and sometimes Gavin only sticks to one. He -”

It was the same exchange every time he had to open the box. Just their voices are more tired than usual and their eyes were not meeting each other. Also, she had avoided his name, and the fact he was the one who ate most of them.

“No idea if anyone’s going to be up for eating them, or if they are still any good to eat this late, but…” She shook her head, “It’s not a big deal. Donuts are cheap so...”

Geoff had been mid bite when Jack took a deep breath. He lowered the doughnut he was about to take a bite out of and gave her a puzzled look.

There was silence and she did eventually meet his eyes.

**_“Geoff, did we fail those kids?”_ **

She found herself sharply asking, her voice rising though not enough to be able to leave the kitchen and be heard from anywhere else in the penthouse. For a moment she was a little surprised by how the words came out but then she was disappointed. He was merely looking at her much as if she had started to speak fluent German right there and then.

Because, of course, he would.

He obviously had not expected her to jump to that particular question.

Though, that question was vague. Awfully vague.

Then, she tried asking her question again, changing the words slightly hoping that it, maybe, just maybe it would get her an answer. That, maybe, specifying how they failed or in what they failed would be enough to lose that confused, lost look that the first try was met with as opposed to getting something useful. She sighed wondering if it would matter trying to change her words around, but they still slipped out. It was easier than trying to find some sort of justification or rambling explanation for the one she just asked.

**_“Did we fail to look out for them?”_ **

Again, it was vague.

But, he had to have realized what she meant.

Her words were sharp, but she was sure that her voice quivered as she said each one, and in an attempt to try and keep some composure she had paused between each one in some attempt to make a point - this was important, she needed to know and she needed to know now. And she would be more than damned if she was going to break now. She had her pride and a reputation to protect.

“What?”

“Dammit Geoff, how did we not realize what was happening? We knew he had quirks but like looking back... ”

It was becoming harder to just sit there and she went on.

“He was texting someone about us! Or like in general but I know what I saw in that message! I think there were other numbers but you let him leave! How did we not think of this?! He hired him off of - fuck, Geoff! There had to be multiple flags!”

Her voice had started calmly when she asked him how they never noticed anything was off but by that point, she had felt her grip on steady, on calmness, directness beginning to slip away.

Before she could realize what he was about to do, he had started to lean forward across the table.

“Jack,” he found himself starting before going quiet. He shook his head.

Jack found herself wincing as his hand reached out towards her and brushed a few messy strands of hair out of her face.

“Look,” He took a breath and exhaled, “We fucked up trusting someone. Someone who had never given us any reason to suspect that there was a reason not to - well because all he did was weird shit that we thought was just a bunch of quirks - but look, we went and took a chance on everyone here…”

His hand gently started to stroke her cheek.

She felt herself growing more than more tempted to nuzzle his hand, but she merely just held onto his wrist instead, not moving.

He, if this has been over something, anything else - he might have given a reassuring smile, but no one was feeling even the fake smiles today.

“Okay, I don’t know. I don’t know what we can call it. But, I don’t think it’s, it’s not your fault, okay, it’s not your fault. We had gone in thinking it was a temp job and stuff turned into something else, something that we had thought was more than fine. As time went on, we thought we knew the guy and -”

She glanced downward, her grip growing tighter.

“I’m the one who brought him into the fold. That wasn’t you. None of this is on you.”

“Geoff…” she started before being shushed gently.

“You did everything you could when you realized something was up.”

“What? I didn’t do shit and you know it.”

“You tried to get everyone out of the way before we confronted him and you tried to comfort them after the shit hit the fan. You were even going to shoot him if he got closer, I saw that much. You’re not defending him. I don’t -”

He is quickly cut off.

“After you told me to and I don’t know if you’ve noticed -” But she is cut off before she can finish what she is saying by two hands slamming on the table, knocking over the coffee but only Jack’s hands manage to keep her mug from also spilling a now grainy, lukewarm tea. The paper towel roll now sat on the floor and somewhat unrolled. A small voice in her head sighed at the idea of having to possibly toss them out without using them. Though, she realized that she still needed to figure out how to paint over the blood on the walls and wondered if she could grab them to use for that task once she finally could be able to get to taking care of it. But then her mind went right back to the matter at hand and she made a pained expression. She had thought about firing the gun right there and then but paused, she shook her head, “I should have fired if I was really trying to protect them. I -”

A sharper tone cut her thoughts off.

“Goddammit Jack, at what part does it stop? If doing every single thing you can think and be sure of at the moment isn’t enough then what the fuck is?”

“I didn’t do anything, Geoff. And he…. Goddammit, he was doing all of that under our roof while pretending he was -! Then he brutalized - ”

“You didn’t defend it, you pointed a gun at him when he attacked Michael and Jeremy, and really by your standard then neither of us did shit. I only cursed him out and threatened to throw him out a window. Then I wrecked the living room further but none of it was useful or helpful. He left on his own and fuck, we should have gotten more info But, I gotta think that we’re going to figure out what is happening eventually and well, he’s gone now. Had a hand in fucking up our living room and that’s going to be a bitch to clean up and get new shit for, but he’s gone. Everyone’s safe...”

“But,” Jack tried to start, “What are we going to do now? We can’t even get -”

“I’ll take care of it,” He muttered, “I’ll talk to them today. One at a time if that’s what we need to do and see from there where we go.”

“I could talk to them if you want. I feel like -”

A hand was held up interrupting her suggestion and she merely sighed. He shook his head and then muttered a curse under his breath before he lowered it and moved the hand back to grasping her shoulder.

“No, I should… you shouldn’t have to take this on. You’ve done the most out of any of us in trying to clean up the mess. Figuratively and literally.”

A shaking of the head and red curls moved violently, “Geoff, you’re not up for it.”

A flat tone, “I read the note. You didn’t.”

A scoff followed, “You burned it and almost burned your office to the ground in the process and then said it was the most unapologetic apology you’ve ever read. I doubt it’ll help...”

“Wait, you heard that?” He sounded incredulous.

“Geoff, all of Los Santos heard that.” This was said with the shake of a head and Geoff realized that Jack and still yet to comb her hair for the day. “Also you probably taught some kids a few creative swears… the lads already know these, I mean kids on the street.”

“They weren’t that creative.” He mumbled.

“Still, you were incredibly loud? Didn’t you hear me banging on the door?”

Everyone was lost, weren’t they?

“Fuck.” He muttered beginning to rub at his forehead as if a headache was starting to come on, “Fuck. I didn’t realize I had gotten that fucking loud with the alarm and all that.”

“Now back to the matter at hand?” she quickly said trying to keep them out of yet another awkward silence. “I doubt having read it would make you an authority.”

Geoff shook his head feeling his temple pulsing for a second before shaking his head again. He was quiet as if trying to think of what he could say next but the words were few and far between and mostly curses.

He almost wished that instead of being immortal they could send lightning or flames down on their enemies instead of being able to survive driving cars off of skyscrapers.

“But I could answer - well, no, you might be right, me having read that pile of bullshit wouldn’t answer anything.”

“We could talk to them together?”

“How would that work?” Geoff asked, “Neither of us has anything that’s going to make anyone feel confident about, like, anything.”

Jack shrugged and shook her head, “I didn’t think about specifics. The idea just kind of jumped into my head, but I think just checking on them would be a good start. Not good, maybe. But a start?”

Geoff raised an eyebrow, “So, you suggest that we should wing it?”

Jack’s mind hadn’t thought of it in that way, but that sounded like what she was suggesting, and since neither of them had a plan this late into the game, “I suppose?”

Just as quickly they both entered complete silence. Geoff finally realized that his coffee had long since spilled and covered both the table, his lap, and the floor around his chair and he had begun to wipe up the mess. Jack had stood up and dumped her tea into the sink and began to rinse the cups including her mug out with hot water. She supposed that now was the best time to start on dishes while there were still so few. The household was the kind where things would build up and become nearly unmanageable. Geoff at least tried to help back then and he still attempted when he realized that there was a mess, but Jack had found herself handling most of it as things happened. The system for the dishes and cups worked and at least spared her that one particular headache. She was still trying to think of how to prevent the nine million incidents that involved holes in walls or blood - but that was looking like it would be an impossible answer as time went on. But, she supposed that they had come a long away from when they were first living together and she had come even farther than occasionally couch surfing or sleeping in an all-night restaurant as she had been doing when she first arrived in the city, fresh off of a bus that came out of Texas and making money in whatever way she could. Starting by swiping wallets from tourists (she had, she would later admit on one particularly quiet night, managed to gather the cash to grab the first bus of the new year out of Texas by doing that) and working her way to learning how to fly and being capable of driving anything with four wheels that a person could buy or take. Then she became proficient in a number of weapons, though she had her preferences that she rarely moved away from. Then there was her transition and getting her own place opposed to crashing on the couches of their friends or whoever could have her. She had been the one to pull him along for the ride and helped him also meet a number of goals for getting set up for life in the city.

“What’s not particularly like you - you always, well, you always at least had rough ideas of what needs to be done.”

She had overcome so much and he had at best taken her advice but never provided much of his own. He supposed it was no wonder.

Then:

“Jack…”

“Yeah?” Her answer was barely audible over the sound of the facet as she started to rinse cups out to put into the dishwasher. She remembered having to chew “him” out every time he used one of the coffee mugs and then just set it into the dishwasher and having to gently remind him to dry the glasses once he had remembered to rinse them first. Now he was glancing at the towels hanging up as if he was debating doing something like drying their dishes without grumbling.

How stupidly domestic.

“How are you doing?”

She felt herself wanting to freeze, though her hands kept moving she found herself biting her lip. She had been hoping to avoid even asking herself that particular question but now that it was here and said at loud? Her mind blanked instantly much how her old computer once decided to die when she was in the middle of a final term paper during her college days. Her mind was moving a bit sluggish, though she felt as if he had thousands of tabs and programs open and running. A quick shake of the head followed the question.

“I… I realized that with everyone…” she started, “that someone needed to keep things going somewhat. I told the others, cleaned up the blood in the living room, started looking at a replacement coffee table, paid the bills, told the others what was going on, “I don’t know, I’ve just been trying to keep busy. Been trying to not think about it, but well, that’s easier said than done so I might as well focus on the stuff in front of me because if I keep thinking about it I’m gonna go crazy.”

A playful sigh followed then “You’re always so responsible.”

A slight smile appeared on her face.

“Well, obviously, no one else was in any sort of state to do it.” She scoffed, “Besides in the fucked up hierarchy of this group - this pretty much means the dirty work is going to fall to me in this case.”

There’s a little bit of sarcasm in her voice towards the end that mixed with the feigned annoyance that came in the form of the wording she used. Not enough that the lads would pick up on it, but Geoff had known her long enough to be able to tell she was trying to make a joke. He tries to smile, he hopes that it comes across as one. It’s hard to want to but he can feel something trying to crack through his serious expression.

“Careful there, Jackie. You might start eye-rolling again - not that your tone isn’t full of that as is.”

“Watch it,” came a quiet attempt at teasing, “I never rolled my eyes even back then.”

“Sure you didn’t... Okay, maybe not with your eyes but you got that tone of voice that just,” he quickly backtracked, “So, how are you doing besides trying to keep busy? Because you’re always trying to keep busy...”

He is looked at and she tries to carefully pick her words. Something she had thought she had long since outgrown after their first few weeks as roommates. He had told her that one had to be bold, even brash and downright rude, to get anywhere within the city that both glistened like gold and burned as if it was on fire. And Jack had long, even before they had met, known that he was right. But that carefully created fighting edge had long run out and she could only guess that was going to take a while to get back.

“Hm”

The woman eventually decided that honestly was the best policy. That was what he would want her to be. As she always had been. Honest. But the brash and bold was coming in short supply - he would have to settle for one out of three. At this moment? It would be the best he would be able to get from her.

She quickly shook her head, “I’ve been wondering what we’re going to do now.”

“Well,” Geoff found himself starting, his words were trailing off again, “Probably bring in B team -”

“Not about jobs.” Jack quickly interjected, “I don’t care about that so much right now I want to know what we’re going to do. Us. The day to day operations or hell, what could we call a normal day. Picking up the pieces? Whatever anyone wants to call it…”

That was surprising to the man. But he knew that eventually, they would have to clean up the broken glass and ruins of whatever life they had been living.

“I don’t know,” He finally admitted, “I know we had...god, that was years ago, once talked about what we're going to do, but…”

“We never agreed on a plan or even managed to come up with a better course of action than “we’ll deal with it if it happens.”

“We were so full of ourselves back then.” He started, “Couldn’t even actually talk about something that important properly.”

She could remember that day. It was, at the time, one of the hottest on record for the city and the surrounding area - the kind where she had caught the neighbor kids cracking eggs on the sidewalk outside of their old building. They lived, and lived was a word she would use loosely to describe what it was they were doing there, in a one-bedroom apartment where the AC was an ancient window unit that never worked as well as their landlord liked to claim and surrounded by cracked walls that they had hastily covered with posters of random movies and bands. The only furniture they had was a mattress, a few hastily constructed shelves from some big box store, a television, and one secondhand couch that was given to them by a neighbor. They had not been a crew, only thinking and heavily considering the idea, but two partners in crime. They since moving in had taken occasional jobs - things that paid under the table, the job market was both overfilled and shit - even a college degree was barely good enough to flip a burger in this particular town - but they supplemented the income with occasional robberies and an executing heists with a small crew that was considered neutral with all the other crews in the city. It was far from the glamorous life or even fairly stable and comfortable, but it was theirs and it worked for them.

Most of their cash went towards the rent on the small, but clean enough - anything without wall to wall roaches was a godsend at the price per month their rent was, though otherwise a shit hole. The rest went to the small amounts of groceries they had in the place at one time and the 100 other bills they got saddled with. Occasionally they could splurge on something that wasn’t instant noodles, apples, bananas, bread, deli meats, and eggs - at best that was takeout from one of the many holes in the wall that once existed in their neighborhood. Sometimes they went out drinking instead. Most of the time one of the other guys tagged along and sometimes paid the bill so the trash can in their kitchen (a trash bag roughly taped up to the wall or the kitchen counter) was filled with take-out boxes with occasional wrappers. Between the two of them, they each had a bowl, plate, and a set of silverware that typically sat on the counter top near the sink next to a stack of paper plates, a half-used bottle of dish soap, and a roll of paper towels. Sometimes Geoff joked about how they only needed a half-beat beanbag chair and a few lamps and they would be living much like a kid in a college dorm. Jack would always retort that being a college would require cinder block walls and bathrooms down the hall. The conversation could easily go on for a good hour as they tossed things back and forth or let it spiral into whatever topic somehow came up.

The beginning of the conversation was in a sense like a well-practiced, fake duel when they had that conversation. Sometimes they laughed as they spoke and other times it sounded as serious as it was when they first had that talk. They sometimes brought it up when they were alone and the room grew quiet and there was nothing hanging over the other’s head. Even when the room and the apartment they were residing in was not some small hole that they were renting and going halfsies on the bills on, they would mention the lack of bean bag chairs and cinder block walls and before long they would both be laughing to the dismay of the others.

\------------------------------------------

_ “We’re also forgetting residence assistants, right?” _

_ “Huh?” Geoff would typically be rummaging through a bag of chips but on that particular occasion he paused his hand having just grasped a chip, “What are those?” _

_ Jack had been flipping absentmindedly through a book as she muttered, her eyes not leaving the page they were scanning, “You know, the students getting free housing for bossing around other students…” _

_ “I didn’t go to college...” He eventually admitted, “I was pretty much the kid who graduated because people took mercy on me. I hated school.” _

_ “I kinda figured. Well, I did... And you did at least get the furniture right. But the mattresses are harder than rocks.” Jack said with an amused grin from her favored spot on the couch, “I had to buy extra blankets to add padding since it screwed up my back something fierce.” _

_ He looked at her thoughtful then found himself asking, “You know, why didn’t you just go in with some people and get an apartment...” _

_ Just as soon as the words left his mouth, he braced himself. She had never talked much about her past and she had seen her get angry at people who pried too much. _

_ “Well, at the time, I had a scholarship and I had to live on campus. Besides, I didn’t have many friends then…” _

_ “You?” Geoff could imagine that she was probably not the most popular person on campus, especially one that big and seemed unfair, but she was making it sound as if had no one at all back then, “You? Seriously? _

_ She nodded and shrugged at his expression trying to smile as if it was nothing that bothered her in particular. _

_ “That’s gotta be bullshit, Jack. I seriously can’t believe that. You’re like the best possible mom friend a person could have. You’re always taking care of people.” _

_ At that she merely laughed though it sounded forced and then muttered, “Heh, well, the people who did stick around really only kept me around for that. Being that kind of person is a bit of a double edged sword in some ways.” _

\------------------------------------------

They had been living together for six months when they had decided to strike off and do their own thing.

Jack had remembered that time. They were finally starting to find some sort of footing within the city and the Rooster Teeth crew had been starting to stagnate. The founders had been content with where they were at for a while but now differences in opinion were started to form. Gus felt they were fine where they were, Matt wanted to scale back a bit, and Burnie wanted to keep pushing for bigger and bigger things. No arguments had broken out yet, but the founders had vacated their apartment and moved into their own individuals only gathering in mutual places to work.

It made both Jack and Geoff incredibly uneasy and he started to wonder if there was going to be split soon.

\------------------------------------------

_ The voice was repeating a statement from moments ago with a tired sort of amusement, the kind that everyone by the time they hit their late twenties recognizes as the voice they are forced to equip by their bosses when talking to anyone from the moment they clock in, “We will be seeing record highs in the low hundreds until Saturday when -” _

Geoff had been fanning himself with a piece of junk mail that had been roughly stuffed into the small mailbox for their apartment without much luck.

_ “Christ, shut that thing off…” He groaned. _

_ (It took until that evening when the sun finally started to set, giving the city an illusion of a break from the overwhelming, disgusting heat, for Jack to realize that he had sounded a little bit like Richard from Weekend at Bernies. A movie that had managed to catch part of just days before the wave began. She had started to chuckle as she attempted to see some sleep on their battered mattress. ) _

_ Jack had found herself blindly feeling around herself for the battered remote control before managing to brush a few fingers over it and quickly picked it up lazily reaching over towards the television and starting to channel surf. _

_ “Don’t need to tell me twice.” Her words were almost breathless as she felt herself lying back down, her short and recently chopped curls spilling onto the floor or rather what ones weren’t already sticking to her face fell onto the wooden flooring, “I don’t need to be reminded we’re living in hell...” _

_ Cartoons, Christian News, Infomercial, Classic movie channel, sports scores, news, news, zombie show... _

_ The man leaned back, a “clonk” sounding from where his head hit the wall, a little harder than intended. He starts to rub the back of his head, wincing some, as he finds himself groaning, “When’s that son of a bitch sending a repairman… half the building doesn’t have any goddamn air conditioning.” _

Jack would have typically shrugged, but her voice did the job for her instead as her eyes scanned the channels.

_ “He claims Monday but I think we’d have a better chance of having our rent refunded before we see even a hair of someone capable of fixing these ancient boxes.” _

_ Superhero movie, Star Wars, crime drama, Sunny? _

_ She lowered the remote at the familiar intro song. _

_ Geoff typically would have raised an eyebrow at a reply like that but instead, he started to laugh, the crinkled half-eaten bag of potato chips spilling onto the floor. Jack sighed at the sound. With a bored and flat tone, she called out, “You’re cleaning that mess up, Geoff.” _

_ Of course, she knew that she was going to have to clean that up before the bugs arrived. _

_ He started to wipe a tear that had formed from his eye while choking out, “I’d put money on seeing a pig fly. It’s the safest bet we can make…” _

_ A small chuckle quickly sounded from the other side of the room. Maybe it was a terrible heat? _

_ “That’s terrible…” _

_ In between laughs, Geoff found himself going, “You know what, I’m gonna deck Matt the next time I see him. Makin’ us move shit in the middle of a goddamn heatwave… we could have blown our Saturday at the beach or takin’ a drive. Doing anything where we might have a chance of not melting to death.” _

_ Jack let her voice do the shrugging for, her chuckle having long ended, as she flatly said, “I don’t know what to say to you there other than we owed him for that pay advance a while back.” _

_ There was silence as the television blared “Goddammit Frank” and her eyes began to shut. _

_ Then Geoff found himself speaking out into the void, asking “Why does owing someone always come down to moving shit for ‘em? I mean, sure, it’s probably one of life’s great mysteries, but come on. It’s always helping some asshole move apartments.” _

_ “I would have thought the great mysteries were more among the lines of “Is there a god” but sure, that’ s, uh I'll give you that.” Jack started before giving him a tired smile, “But it’s a good question, but not one I have the answer to. Besides, he and Burnie came to bat for us when we both first got here, we’re still asking for help and still relying on them for jobs, so we’re pretty much locked in for the foreseeable future to help.” _

_ A snort sounded before Jack could finish, “You’re always so annoyingly responsible.” _

_ “Geoff, you were the one so eager to accept before hearing what it was you were agreeing to help with. The fault’s entirely on you with this one.” _

_ There was more silence. A couple more episodes had played and then a movie replaced the show. _

_ “You know, I’ve been thinking about something lately.” _

_ “What were you thinking about?” _

_ He shuffled in place for a moment before laughing and blurting out, “I was thinking this is probably fucking nuts, but maybe we should try goin’ off on our own after this next job.” _

_ Jack pursed her lips at that sudden proposition and found herself pursing her lips as she pulled herself off of the floor. _

_ “I mean sure, it’d be great to be able to call the shots,right? We’re both getting tired of the same old jobs and -” _

_ This was met with a nod of understanding. _

_ “Yes, it’d be nice, but t’ll be tricky to get started,” she started saying with an even tone of voice and as if she was picking her next words carefully, “We’d pretty much be doing what we’re doing now but the kinds of places we could try would be much smaller... unless you’re planning on bringing in more people.” _

_ “I mean, we’ll start off doing what we need to do, but what -” _

_ “Geoff, if we try to do anything bigger we’re just asking to get our asses handed to us. Putting it mildly.” _

“Okay then, we’ll just bring some folks in. I got a few names off of Burnie and Gus thinking that's what you’d say-”

_ This was met with a sigh of “Let me hear ‘em then.” _

_ Geoff found himself grinning wildly as he tossed a crumpled piece of notebook paper in her direction, “I’ll do you one better than that.” _

_ Jack sighed and carefully opened the note and her eyes began to scan the names that had been hastily written on each line on the paper in messy chicken scratch. _

_ Her annoyed expression had softened with each line. _

_ Michael Jones, Gavin Free, Ray Narvaez, Jr., Jeremy Dooley… _

It was certainly a list that only those two could have compiled and written on notebook paper like it was nothing.

_ These were all known entities within the underground of Los Santos, all the names were both neutral to most of the other crews and infamously skilled at what they did - their only allegiances was to whoever was paying them. No histories of betraying their employers unless double crossed first and they were damn good at their specialities. But that meant they were going to be expensive to hire and even more so to keep beyond a job or two. Even hiring one would cost more than a month of their current rent. Not that it wouldn’t be worth it, but they also needed a roof over their head and food. Maybe if they could get something big set up where they could give them cuts of what they managed to take? _

_ “The issue is money, “ She flatly said, “We would need some serious cash to even consider talking to any of them...” _

_ Geoff’s expression fell slightly as if he had expected her to be impressed by the list that was put together. _

_ A sigh followed. _

_ “It’s not impossible to get one or two with them if we can promise to give them a generous share of whatever we can get, but it has to be a job that’s damn worth their time.” _

_ She then added, “We would need something to pitch to them, I think. Who we pitch to also would depend on what the plan we come up with is.” _

_ “I got one already,” Geoff quickly said, “Well, I got an idea for one, at least.” _

_ “An idea isn’t a plan. Also, I haven’t even gotten the most important thing - if we try recruiting or even hiring help, how are we going to be able to trust them?” _

_ “Well, Gus and Burnie - “ He had started. _

_ Jack weakly raised her hand, frowning at how un-forceful that was, “Gus and Burnie are legends in this town.” _

_ “And so? If you’re going to say something like -‘” _

_ “Well, you got part of it,” She sighed, interrupting him, “But, again, you’re not thinking beyond what you want to see. Just because we got their names and the fact we’re on good terms with them -” _

_ “Then?” He figured that she was going to interrupt that two could play at that game. “What do you mean by ‘then’?” _

_ “Well, if you’d let me finish, Geoff.” Jack chided, a little more hard than she intended but she was not a particular fan of being interrupted without someone having a good point. She merely attempts to cross her arms before deciding to place them at her sides, it was much too hot for that pose, and sighs, “But you need more than just someone’s name around here and you know this already. Names are introductions. You need cash to do any talking. Especially in this town.” _

_ She shut her eyes and sighed. She had likely built his hopes up while trying to pull him back to the ground, or rather, the apartment floor. Sure, she was not technically wrong. But she also had downplayed what she meant and maybe dangerously so. Having money was not the end all be all that she had just made it out to be. Cash could get you a couple of words in but even that did not guarantee that the party you were trying to recruit would listen. Even a few of the biggest crews around had been screwed over by their own hired hands. You needed to have something. The issue was the “something” was something she had yet been able to pin down and find a proper description for. It was more than just money and certainly more than knowing and being respected by bigger fish in the pond. She was sure the type would matter to at least some of the names on that list. _

_ “Helloooooo? Earth to Jack?” _

_ “No, wait, it’s not so much the cash. But I’d say the money helps - if we can offer them something more than our spare change. But I’d say we need to figure out what makes these guys tick. But we need a heist or something thought up so we can figure out who we even could get and then figure out what they’re into. I know some of the unaffiliated hands are about the challenge. Some pick by who they mesh with. Others just want to fuck shit up...” _

_ “Slow down there, Jack. You’re jumping around a lot there.” _

“For now, we should focus on getting a plan and the cash we would need to entice them with. We can figure out how to fully pay them once we got an idea in mind.”

_ “Jack?” _

_ “That might at best get someone to agree to meet with us once we can promise them the cash or a share. That doesn’t mean our throats won’t be cut while we sleep or if things go south during the job they won’t ditch us or worse. That’s the thing about Los Santos. There’s no such thing as honor here.” _

_ Geoff merely stared at her. _

_ “You know, if we do this, maybe you should be in charge?” _

_ Jack felt herself bristle and then shrug, “I don’t like talking like this about people, you know that. I don’t believe everyone is inherently bad, but I’ve been burned more times than I can attempt to count or even remember since I’ve gotten here. Nothing about any of that means I’m qualified to be in charge of anything.” _

_ “Unlike me, you started in this hellhole doing these jobs also I mean aren’t most people in charge kind of know-it-alls anyway-” _

_ “Yeah, but even I’ll admit a lot of that was luck. I got lucky with meeting you guys and a couple of the guys that lead me to the Rooster Teeth crew. If I hadn’t? I might be in the morgue, living in an alleyway, or hooking. I think two of three would lead to the first anyway.” Then she quickly shot him a look and sharply added, “I find that last part incredibly offensive.” _

_ “I said “no offense meant” and my tone heavily implied it!” _

_ “That still doesn’t mean you needed to say it,” she sharply retorted, “Anyway, I’m not that good. What experience I have isn’t enough and I’m not the savviest person-” _

_ He snorted again, “I doubt that. You’re pretty savvy.” _

_ A shake of the head and a “I didn’t start savvy and I still don’t feel like I am.” _

_ “Who the hell honestly does?” _

_ This was a fair point. _

_ Jack gave the question some thought, before giving him a tired “Then maybe it would be better to argue that I don’t have the magnetic personality that’s required for the job.” _

_ “You’re fine with people, but if you really don’t want to - I’ll do it. It’s my grand idea anyway…” _

_ Jack shook her head feeling a mixture of both “Of course you should” and wondering if he was serious about all of this. Eventually,she figured she might as well bite the bullet and ask if he was. _

_ “Are you serious about this, Geoff?” _

_ “Yeah, I think I'm pretty goddamned serious about doing this. But only if you’re in too. You get this place. You get people. You’re good at handling yourself and keeping things going. I was more or less couch surfing until you asked me to move in…” _

_ “So you’re saying you need me?” _

_ “Uh, yeah. I pretty much always do.” _

_ That had been unexpected and she could only stare at him. _

_ “If we do this,” Jack had then (once she could find her words again) said - the oven-like room suddenly turning cold or at least she had started to feel a sudden chill, sitting up and reaching for her discarded shirt and quickly pulling it on, “If we do this, how are we going to know if the people we want for it are trustworthy?” _

\------------------------------------------

There was never an answer they could both agree to. They waffled and waffled on how to go about finding that answer.

It felt inappropriate but she felt herself suddenly laughing, though it was a quiet sort of one, and she needed to set the mug still in her hand down on the counter for a moment until she could collect herself.

As she struggled to keep from laughing more, she breathed, “Oh, god. We were full of shit, weren’t we?”

A smile managed to appear on Geoff’s face.

“We were.” He agreed before quickly changing back over to the topic at hand, “So, since neither of us has any good ideas - then I guess we settle for talking to the lads about what happened and see what the others say about the news. We’ll just have to start pulling them in for jobs more often than we used to.”

It was a solution. A fairly decent one considering the situation and the situation requiring a quick decision be made.

“I can’t see us trying to bring in new faces and I honestly don’t want to do that right now.”

“I wish we had more than one empty room,” she said with a nod, “I would say we move everyone in. It’d be safer if we were all together anyway.”

“You think - “ He started, but he was quickly interrupted.

“I thought we knew him. Well, as much as we were going to get that wasn’t the dirty details. That he, at the least, was... But now? I can’t be sure we can trust him to not try something.” Then she sighs and sets the glass in her hands down, “Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but I’d feel better if we at least we’re together?”

“Well, we could have everyone camp on in the living room for a few days and call the others in. Just until we get a grasp on the situation. It might cheer things up a bit anyway.”

Jack made a face. That sounded like when a kid wanted to invite all their friends over for a slumber party in the middle of their summer vacation. It sounded so innocent.

“So -”

“I’ll call everyone this afternoon,” He said simply before waving his hand, “We need to have a meeting anyway. Why not at least make it something a little less pointless. Besides, when’s the last time everyone did something together that wasn’t work-related anyway.”

She nodded as he pulled away, hands up in the air.

“You got it then.” His tone slightly lighter, “Anyway, need any help with that?”

“Yeah, that’d be great. Can you dry? I don’t think we need to run the dishwasher for just these, honestly.”

“Got it,” he went grabbing for one of the towels they kept hanging nearby.

They worked silently for a bit, taking their time.

“Jack, I… did you ever think that maybe we’re getting too old for this sometimes?”

At that sudden question, the mug in her hand nearly was dropped into the sink, only saved in the nick of time - not that she was sure it was even going to break, but it was better to not have to clean up shards of ceramic or throw out a cracked cup. She hands it over to Geoff without looking and after a moment she turns to face him with a raised eyebrow.

“What do you mean “getting too old”? I know that we’re not twenty-something anymore, but we’re not old… we might never get old, honestly...”

She can’t think of what to say to that. She had never thought of it. What was the point when you looked the same as you had for over a decade?

Geoff had been, though, and he gave her a sheepish and forced smile.

“Yeah, I know. On both counts, but well… we've been doing this for years, you know?”

The woman merely frowned, “Yeah, and?”

Geoff was quiet for a moment before setting the towel down on the counter. He took a deep breath, only barely letting it go after a moment and after he glanced down at the countertop. Jack found herself glancing over and leaning back trying to get a good look at him as he quietly answered her unasked silent question.

“I think I want to take a break for a while. From heists.”

Jack felt as if someone slapped her. She meets his answer with equal silence before finally managing a quietly muttered, “You want to take a break? Now?”

He nodded silently still refusing to meet her eyes.

“But, we need you, especially now.”

The next words took a while to come out but came out indignantly but he looked right into her eyes, “I didn’t say I was dumping you assholes.”

She wasn’t being dumped either.

Jack was silent but she nodded to see if he would continue.

Which Geoff did by quickly adding, “I can’t see it being forever anyway. I love you guys. It would only be for a while because well…” He sighs, “You know, maybe not this same day, but after all of this settles down - well, yeah, I fucked up with looking out for all of you. There’s probably nothing that we could have seen that we can now like I more or less said. Maybe we should have been more serious before creating this whole thing. But, you know, I almost jumped back into drinking after -” his words trailed off for a moment, “And it made me think that maybe I need to step back for a while.”

She nodded, he had gone right to the liquor cabinet in the living room after the whole incident. Stopping once his hand had managed to grab a clean glass that sat inside of it and nearly throwing it down. She could hear him taking the heavy steps and the “goddammit” that followed. She had to assume the rest. There had been one glass sitting out of the shelf they were kept on.

“But, what about - “

He shrugs, “Don’t worry so much about jobs or plans. I got a couple of gigs set up to get you guys started. After that, it’s on you and the others to come up with something while I’m on a break.”

Jack looked unsure.

A shake of the head, “It’s not hard. You guys have come up with plenty of ideas in the past and a few of them worked well enough. Besides, you could always knock on the office door and ask for help if you get stuck. Besides, have some confidence in yourself. I’d be screwed if it wasn't for you reeling me in more than once.”

“Okay,” She sighed, “I know I’ve looked at plans and have made corrections to them to make them more feasible before -”

“Then don’t be so concerned about making a plan or letting someone pitch one. You know what you’re doing and don’t let this tell you otherwise.”

“But, wait, I get it. You need some time off. That’s fine… no, it’s more than fine, just worried me with the tone that you were done with us for good after all this, but -”

“Well, I need to ask something - who’s gonna lead?”

A snort came almost immediately before the answer, “Thought that was obvious.”

“No, it’s not. Because I think if you’re going to toss one of the lads at the job - I think you’re going to have to have a short vacation lined up.”

“What? Why would I let one of them be in charge even for an hour? I love those guys to death but no way. Not for like a hundred years at least.”

“You did leave Michael in charge once,” Jack admitted, “We were supposed to be going out to see the Rooster Teeth crew for a night out - that only lasted twenty minutes before Gavin called asking what they should do with a burning microwave.”

“And that was the moment I refused to ever leave any of them in charge again.”

Jack couldn’t help but chuckle at the memory. She remembered their talk in the office that night and he had exclaimed those same few words. Once the moment passed, she then found herself asking, “So, who are you leaving in charge?”

“Are you gonna be this obtuse, Jack? Because playing dumb is not a good look for you.” This came out sharply, something past the normal sarcastic tone of voice that she was used to, “You know as well as I do who I’m talking about. I dropped like thirty hints about it. That it’s you. I’m leaving you in charge.”

“What - “ Jack suddenly exclaimed, “What?”

He shrugged, “You got it. I’m leaving shit to you. Who else could I possibly leave in charge of this merry band of idiots but my second in command?”

“G-Geoff,” she started after a moment of stunned silence, “Geoff, I can’t do that.”

“What the hell do you mean that you can’t? Do you mean “can’t” in the modest sense or do you think you can’t be in charge for a little while?”

“I can’t. I mean, I shouldn’t be in charge of anything.”

“Okay, why do you think that you shouldn't because I’m gonna need a good reason. By a good reason, I mean a goddamn good one. And everything that just happened doesn’t count.”

“Why doesn’t it count?” Jack found herself flatly asking, “Do I at least get to ask you that much?”

“Yeah, and I’ll even give you an answer to that.” Geoff said, “For example, who cleaned up all the blood and the broken table pieces and even ordered a new one?”

“I did.” Jack muttered, “But I don’t see what that has to do with -”

“Who normally makes the supply lists and does the shopping? Who keeps this place packed to the brim with food, first aid kits, and hell, actually makes sure the bills get paid.”

“I am… but that doesn’t make someone a leader.”

“You’re goddamn right you’re the one keeping all that filled up and up to speed. Come on, you’re the one keeping us together. Could you imagine what things would be like without you?”

“I just like to make sure I can eat and shower and have a place to live and not end up on the street, again.”

“That’s not the only reason… you’re someone who gives a shit about keeping things together and half working.”

Jack had never thought about it and merely shrugged.

“Okay, so let me ask you this one. Could you see me trying to get supplies? Hell, do I even know how to grocery shop beyond just getting enough for one dude to last a day?”

“No…” She could see, she had seen him attempt grocery shopping before - back when they were seeing each other outside of work but before they decided to move in together, what passed for sufficient amounts of food for him back in the day was a trip to the liquor store, a few bags of potato chips, and a few things to make sandwiches with or all the ramen noodles he could stuff into a single plastic bag. He spent more time staring at all the foods that he knew he couldn’t afford usually with some sarcastic comment or raised eyebrow. Sometimes Jack had to sigh and remind him to go back to the store and grab some sort of fruit or bottle of vitamins. Other times she had, at some point later in the week, dropped by the apartment he lived with Gus in and with a sigh held out one of her cloth bags. She always muttered with a half blush, “You need to eat real food” then reminded him that he owed her for the groceries. Not that she ever came after him for the money.

“Who’s the one who was keeping the lads more or less in line?”

“There you go. They, surprisingly, listen to you when it comes to day to day things. If they can do that, they can listen to you during a job or when shit is hitting the fan.”

“And B team?” Jack went as she handed Geoff the mug that she had still clutching on to tightly.

He took it without looking as if he could just tell where he hand and the cup were and shrugged, “They’ll listen to you. Trust me.”

Jack shook her head, “I mean are you going to tell them? Tell everyone?”

“Yeah, I just need to find the right words because obviously if you panicked then I need to watch how I announce this.”

A loud sigh followed before she snapped, “I didn’t panic.”

“Sure, you didn’t. Why else did you just immediately jump to -”

“I already said it. You made it sound like you were quitting for good. Pardon me for thinking we were going to losing our boss after losing the muscle - the stupid monster he is...”

She wondered if she should have taken the shot that she had been threatening to take and she wonders if she also had wanted to. If that would have made things worse.

“Jack?” Geoff called out waving his hand in front of her face, “Hey Jackie - you okay?”

“Huh? Oh,” This was met with her eyes widening and a quick shake of the head, “I’m fine. I was just saying you made it sound like it was quitting for good, not a break.”

“Wait, did it sound like that?” His head tilting ever so slightly, “Anyway, it looks like we have all this stuff dyed and washed now. Are you finally going to eat something or what?”

“Talk about a sudden change in subject,” a deep breath then sounded before a tired grumble of “Fine.”

She dried her hands with another of the hanging towels making a mental note to toss them into the laundry once things were done and settled and hoping that she would remember to do so before retaking her seat at the kitchen table. She reached her hand into the box and fished a doughnut out at random, not even bothering to take any sort of glance at what she was pulling out and about to eat.

“Huh, old fashioned for you today?” 

Jack takes a bite of the doughnut not bothering to try and taste the food. Her bite was more mechanical than anything and her chewing was the same - automatic and like it was nothing she had to do, not because she wanted to. She was still far from hungry but it was probably best to try. It would at least make Geoff relax a little more and it kept her from having to answer right away.

Once she had finished half of the doughnut in her hand, Geoff quietly asked, “So, are you going to do it?”

“I don’t know.” She started. Though she knew that she was still going to have to take the role. She couldn’t deprive him of a needed break and she believed him when he said that it would be temporary. “I know I should, though. I’m the second...”

“It’s not just that you're the second in command. It’s more that you’re the only one I trust to keep things together. I knew I was right to think that after seeing you -”

Jack cut him off with a blunt, “Geoff, I never got into this for the power.”

“It’s not - okay, fair. Being in charge means you’re going to be able to do a lot of things...”

“I mean, it’s a lot of power, I’d be pretty much -”

“Yeah, sure, you’re going to be in charge of the most powerful crew in this city. But, it’s really not all that different than what you’re doing now. You’re still going to have downtime and look, I think as long as you're smart about things and you are - your day to day isn’t going to be entirely different than normal.” Then he quickly added, “Look, if you’re going to turn it down then I just won’t take the break. It’s not a huge deal. But, I seriously don’t know who in the hell else I can trust with this. If all the stuff I named doesn’t prove you’re the right person for this job then I don’t know who would be.”

“Geoff, you saying that you’re tired and need a break is a big fucking deal. You need it if you’re saying you need it…”Her words trailed off until she felt a hand grasping her shoulder, “Besides, someone has to keep things going, I guess. It might as well be me and you have said that you think I’m the one already doing that much.”

Geoff nodded, “Again, seriously, only if you need like you can and want to.”

They then looked at each other.

“Fine… I’ll take over a while,” Jack eventually sighed, “But only for a while. This isn’t permanent. I never wanted to be in charge and you know that.”

“I know,” Geoff said seriously with a nod, “I know you never did and it’s only going to be for a while. I promise, alright? I’m not going to ditch you guys. I just need a breather. I fucked up and I need to get my shit together. Almost relapsing makes a person think...”

Jack nodded.

“Now finish that doughnut and we’ll go and figure out how we should go about getting this arrangement set up.”

**End.**

  
  



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